


My Fair Warrior, Pt. 1

by sv_you_know_who_I_am



Series: ACOTAR Modern AU [1]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, Torture, prisoners of war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-02 18:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8678428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sv_you_know_who_I_am/pseuds/sv_you_know_who_I_am
Summary: MODERN AUIt's the year 2020, and the United States is at war with Russia and its allies. Private Feyre Archeron, who enlisted to escape poverty, is now a prisoner of war in the Ural Mountains along with her boyfriend, Captain Tamlin Springer (son of the U.S. Secretary of Defense); his best friend, First Lieutenant Lucien Fallbrook; and tech millionaire-turned-traitor Rhysand Knight. Her escape and recovery are not easy, and her trust in those she loves will be challenged. Feyre might survive the war . . . but will she ever survive its aftermath?(This will be continued through ACOMAF in another fic.)





	1. The Bargain

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Modern AU set in the year 2020, during and after a fictional war between the U.S. and Russia. Some dialogue is taken directly from ACOTAR and belongs to Sarah J. Maas. Other interpretation is mine. This will likely be told in vignettes, or retellings of specific scenes from the series. I'm not sure yet how long it will be. I hope you enjoy this take!

_0400, 5 SEP 2020. Мёртвая гора (The Mountain of the Dead), Russia._

I was freezing cold, but I was sweating all the same.

Fever. I knew it well.

I remembered the influenza I had caught the year my father had been too distracted to remember to get us all flu shots, and the ensuing sickness had kept me bedridden for days. My sister Elain had almost died from it. Only Nesta’s illness had been mild enough to tend to us, and she’d never forgiven my father for his most grievous oversight after my mother’s death.

The flu had been nothing compared to this.

I curled up in the corner of the dark room that was my cell in the war camp high in the Ural Mountains--where exactly, I still wasn’t sure. My fatigues were utter trash by now, torn and ripped and stained and virtually useless against the cold. The cold was a punishment. It was only early autumn and the worst of the cold weather had not come to the Urals. Still, the harsh and dark room where they imprisoned me was intentionally kept cold, while the general and her soldiers stayed in warmth and comfort. I had no idea what state she kept Tamlin in, and I didn’t want to know. The general kept him because he was the son of one of the president’s cabinet members--an important bargaining tool.

And she kept me because I was important to Tamlin.

Not that she’d be keeping me much longer, if this wound in my arm was left to fester any longer.

I shifted to look at the injury, the result of the most recent round of torture the Russian general had put me through. She’d had me tortured when they’d first caught me sneaking into the compound to rescue Tamlin--I’d been one of two survivors, and only the argument of her next-favorite captive had been enough to keep her from killing me on the spot. I was no one, after all--just an unfortunate private who had joined the army to escape poverty and hadn’t even been in long enough to be promoted to specialist. I was her plaything.

I would be a dead plaything soon if I didn’t get medical attention, and I was too woozy to apply any of the first aid skills I’d acquired through years of Girl Scouts. All I could do was keep myself propped against the wall, trying to avoid thinking about the horror they’d subjected me too under the light of the full moon just days before. Kicking me around in the mud, making me run from threat of more torture, only to stumble and fall onto craggy stones they’d erected all about . . . followed by more beating. All the while, they’d been shouting at me in Russian, almost none of which I could understand . . .

The door to my room opened and I pressed myself tighter against the wall, cringing as the movement agitated the broken shard of rock stuck in my arm. “ _Net, net, pozhaluysta_ ,” I whimpered. “ _Ya nichego ne znayu_!” The only words of Russian I knew: _No, no, please. I know nothing._

“Hush with that now,” said a silken voice from the darkness on the other side of the room. English. American. “I’m not here to interrogate you.”

I snapped my head up and glared at the man across from me. Rhysand Knight--the tech millionaire and genius. The prisoner-of-war turned traitor. He’d been here longer than either Tamlin or me, and instead of resisting as I was, he’d consented to a bargain with the Russian general, the woman we called Amarantha in English: he’d provide her with technology, and he could live. Now Russia had an advantage in this war, and millions would die because of it.

“What are you doing here?” I growled, but my voice was hoarse and weak.

“What a sorry state for Tamlin’s savior,” Rhysand crooned, cocking his head at me in the infuriating way he did. I’d only met him twice before--once at Tamlin’s house back in D.C., when he’d crashed one of Tamlin’s parties. I hadn’t known who he was then--I hadn’t exactly been able to afford Rhysand’s kind of technology growing up. He’d frightened off some drunk frat boys for me, but that had been the extent of our odd first meeting. After that, he’d turned up at a fundraiser hosted by Tamlin's father and openly picked a fight. He and Tamlin knew each other from college, hated each other, and Rhys had spat some harsh words about Tamlin’s “war-mongering” father. I hadn’t paid much mind, since I was too caught up in nerves. But I had been surprised and betrayed to find out that Rhysand’s “humanitarian” work in one of the warzones in Eastern Europe had led to his capture by Amarantha and his eventual treason. Now Rhysand lived quite comfortably under Amarantha’s protection, helping her slaughter my fellow soldiers and innocent civilians as she willed.

“Go to Hell,” I wheezed. God, the room was spinning. It was as if the corners of the room were nothing more than swirling shadows.

Rhysand crouched before me, cocking his head so that the moonlight through the sliver of a window caught his pale skin. “What would Tamlin say if he knew his beloved was rotting away down here, burning up with fever? Not that he can even come here, not when his every move is watched.” Rhys’s voice was a caressing murmur, but it did not hide the danger of his words.

“Get away from me,” I said. My throat was tight with pain.

“I come here to offer you help, and you have the nerve to tell me to leave?”

“Get away,” I repeated. My eyes ached from the pepper spray the Russians had used on me, and it was a miracle I was able to see anything at all.

“Let me see your arm.” He growled when I did not obey, and without warning he snatched my elbow and drew my injured arm into the light. I bit my lip so hard I almost drew blood, but I was determined not to cry out--I knew the Russians could put me through far worse, and I’d be damned if I let Rhysand know badly I was injured. He’d likely tell Amarantha, and she’d only do worse.

“Oh, that’s wonderfully gruesome,” Rhysand said with a gut-twisting smile.

“Fuck off,” I spat.

Rhysand tsked. “Such words for a lady.”

“I’m not a lady,” I wheezed. “I’m a soldier.”

Rhysand’s violet eyes sparked with something I couldn’t read. “Indeed you are. But you are a soldier who will be lucky to keep her arm if I don’t apply some immediate First Aid.”

“What do you know about First Aid?” I demanded.

Rhysand chuckled, and the sound skittered over my bones. “Eagle Scout, at your service,” he said, flourishing a salute.

If I’d had the breath I would have snorted. I hardly pictured Rhysand Knight in a beige uniform covered in merit badges. “I was a Girl Scout,” I croaked instead.

“Not the same thing, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” Rhysand said dismissively. He lifted his angular chin and cocked his head. “What will you give me for my expertise?”

I made an indignant noise. “Give you? I have nothing to give someone like you.”

“On the contrary, Feyre darling, you have a lot to offer me.”

“That’s Private Archeron to you,” I snapped.

“My apologies.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

Rhysand’s smile was serpentine. “A date. With you. Once we’re stateside again.”

“I have a _boyfriend_ ,” I spat. I didn’t have it in me to tell him that the odds of us ever getting stateside again were slim to none.

Rhysand’s face turned stony. “Yes. And much good he’s doing you right now.”

“Get out. I don’t want your deal.”

“You don’t have much choice, _private_ ,” Rhysand said, pronouncing the last word as though it tasted foul. “Your little friend Lieutenant Fallbrook is a bit indisposed, after all.” He stood to his feet and paced the tiny room in front of me. I was almost dizzy watching him.

“What do you mean?” I asked, nausea hitting me hard as I thought about Lucien--Tamlin’s best friend and my immediate supervisor. He had been the only one to believe me when I’d said that there might be a way to get Tamlin out of these mountains. I had grown up in the mountains, after all. I could figure out the terrain and get him out, I’d said. Then we’d both been captured. I was such a fool. Lucien and I had been brought together only once since arriving here, and he’d set my broken nose after one of Amarantha’s grunts had smashed it. Since then, I’d only seen him in passing, and I’d been worrying for him ever since.

“His little show of support for you earlier cost him--he’s recovering form his own injuries right now. Injuries bestowed by his own friend, nonetheless. Who knows when he’ll be able to walk again?” Rhysand sounded almost entertained at the idea of Tamlin being forced to hurt his best friend. When it seemed like I wouldn’t budge, he stopped in his tracks and fixing his beautiful midnight eyes on me. My blood chilled at the intensity of his gaze. “You’re dying,” he said. “It’s unlikely anyone else is going to offer to help you. No one is coming for you, only for Tamlin, and the way our government works, you’re sadly acceptable collateral. You’ll be dead by the time anyone gets here. How much are you willing to risk that inevitability?”

My nostrils flared as I leveled my gaze on him. Never would I agree to entertain someone like Rhysand--not even for a night. He’d betrayed my nation. He’d made Tamlin beg for my life. He’d stood by while Amarantha tortured innocents. “Go. To. Hell.”

Before I could so much as flinch, Rhysand lunged toward me and twisted the sharp stone embedded in my arm. This time I couldn’t help but scream. The second he stepped back and I had the strength, I spat in his face.

He only laughed and wiped his face as he straightened. “I bet you’ll be spitting on Death’s face when she comes to claim you, too.”

“You’re a sick bastard,” I seethed.

“Yes,” Rhysand said bluntly, “but that will make it all the more fun when I take you out and you dump a bottle of expensive wine on my head, won’t it? I’m not asking for a good date, see. Just a taste of normal. A taste of before, with someone delicious. Like you.”

“The second we hit home soil you’ll be in prison for treason. It’ll be a bit hard to keep our date when you’re behind bars,” I reminded him.

Rhysand grinned. “Then you really have nothing to lose, do you?”

I fought past another wave of nausea and dared a glimpse down at my ruined arm. "Fine,” I said in a small voice. “It’s a deal.”

Rhysand smiled in triumph and knelt down, pulling a tiny First Aid kit out of his pocket. “Then allow me to play doctor.”

-

I passed out while Rhysand was fixing my arm. When I woke up, it was clean and stitched, and my nausea had faded. However, black ink was swirled all over my hand, as though he’d drawn on me while I slept. A feline eye, beautifully rendered, decorated the palm of my hand, and various flowers and vines twisted around my arm. I rubbed at the ink, but it didn’t come off--and wouldn’t either, not without about a dozen showers.

I sagged back against the cold wall and stared at the ceiling, where a beam of sunlight was now extending through the window crack. “Bastard,” I muttered.

And then I fell asleep.


	2. The Shattering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still trapped in the Mountain of the Dead, Feyre faces the horrors of the Russian general and must fight for her own sanity through the nightmare around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, some lines come directly from ACOTAR and belong to Sarah J. Maas.

 

_1900, 30 SEP 2020. Мёртвая гора (The Mountain of the Dead), Russia._

I stared in the cloudy mirror at the scraps of blood-orange material hugging my near-skeletal frame. This--this _costume_. It was vile, but by now it had become normal. Almost every night, at Rhysand Knight’s request, I was dolled up and brought out to where General Afanasiia Konstantinovna--Amarantha, to her American prisoners--had little parties to entertain herself between rounds of mass murder and destruction. Every night, he took me as his escort and made me get so drunk I couldn’t remember a thing the next morning.

Two thin Serbian women were responsible for dressing me to Rhysand’s taste, but they never spoke directly to me. They seemed to work for Rhysand, but I wasn’t sure how they’d come to be in the Mountain of the Dead or what their tale was. I didn’t care enough to ask.

They disappeared the moment Rhysand arrived to collect me. I scowled at him, as usual.

“They’re going to question you again tomorrow night,” he said as though he was reporting on the weather.

I blinked, feeling as though I’d been stricken with a stone. “What? Why? I . . . they told you this?”

“I pay attention,” he said, shrugging one shoulder before leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest.

“What are you telling me this?” My voice was small and cold. “If you’re taunting me into playing another game of yours, you’re wasting your breath.”

“Aren’t you going to beg me to give you another night with your beloved?” Rhysand asked, lifting an eyebrow.

I stiffened as I thought of all the nights that had passed us by. Amarantha kept Tamlin by her side at every little party, and every night, he pretended as though he didn’t know me. Lucien--in a brief visit--had been able to tell me that he was trying to keep Amarantha’s attention away from me by pretending I didn’t matter to him. I understood, but . . . wasn’t that also the only thing keeping me alive? I was worth nothing to Amarantha or to my own government. I was only still alive because it helped keep Tamlin in line. If he pretended to stop caring . . . Amarantha might get bored.

I shivered when I thought of the horror of the last round of interrogation, the one that had nearly killed me and put me at Rhysand’s mercy. Perhaps she was only planning to torment me tomorrow because she was bored of waiting for Tamlin’s reaction. I clenched my fists at my sides and worked hard to keep Rhysand from reading my face, though I was sure he saw it all anyway.

“I’ll have that night with Tamlin, and all the ones after, when we get out here.” It was posturing, and Rhysand knew it. He shrugged and grinned as he stood upright, stepping toward me.

“I wonder if you were this prickly with Tamlin when you were his captive romance.”

My nostrils flared. “He never treated me like a captive,” I insisted. True, we’d only fallen in love after I had been caught poaching on his father’s land, resulting in me doing community service for Tamlin’s father’s charity. Then I'd enlisted to stay with him during the war, and despite the hardships of military service, those months with Tamlin had been the happiest of my life. That was why it hurt so much now that he wouldn’t even look at me--even when I’d come here to save him.

“No--and how could he? Not with the shame of his father and brothers’ brutality always weighing down on him, the poor, noble beast.” Rhysand had never made his disdain for Tamlin’s father a secret--he was not alone in blaming Secretary Springer for antagonizing Russia into a war in the first place. “But perhaps if he’d bothered to learn a thing or two about brutality, about what it means to truly serve your country, then he would have gotten himself and you into this mess.”

“Don’t lecture _me_ about serving my country,” I snarled. “Not when you turned your back on _everything_ and got in bed with the enemy.” Rhys’s liaisons with Amarantha were the most popular form of gossip among the Russian soldiers, and I’d learned two new Russian words as a result. _Amerikanskaya suka_. American whore.

Sadness flickered in those violet eyes, and my heart gave an uncomfortable squeeze. Almost like pity. But the sadness was gone in a blink, replaced by his usual icy calm. “What I do or have done for my country is none of your concern.”

 _Bastard_ , I wanted to spit. _Traitorous bastard_. Everyone knew that he was designing technology for Russia now--some of the most advanced technology on the market, perfect for spying and hacking and all manner of modern warfare. How could he be anything but a traitor, after that?

“The festivities await,” Rhysand purred.

“What do you want with me? Beyond taunting Tamlin,” I asked, holding my ground.

“Taunting him is my greatest pleasure. And why does any man need a reason to enjoy the presence of a woman?”

“You saved my life.” He didn’t have to do that. And he didn’t have to warn me about the torture I would face tomorrow, either.

“Through _your_ life, I saved Tamlin’s.”

“Why?”

Rhys winked and ran a hand for his carefully-styled black hair. “That, Feyre, is the real question, isn’t it?”

He took me by the arm and led me to the opulent lounge where Amarantha held her soirees. It was so stunningly different from the cell where I was held day and night that it seemed like I was stepping into another world. Chandelier’s glittered on the ceiling and a roaring fire lit the room in gold, the light dancing off the embroidered rugs beneath us. Usually Rhys would lead me to a corner and hold me on his lap all night while the party went on, ensuring that I was quickly drunk enough that I remembered nothing the next day. And Lucien had assured me that I wouldn’t want to remember. I braced myself for that, but when we stepped into the room, the atmosphere was different than normal.

All the assembled officers stared at Rhysand as Amarantha summoned him to where she sat on a lush couch, Tamlin in a chair beside her. My heart clenched and I tried to catch his eye--but nothing. My heart clenched and I gave up, looking instead at the floor before Amarantha . . . where I was horrified to see a man coiled on the ground, blood dripping from his nose onto the rug.

Amarantha, dressed in a lovely yet modest gown, caressed the ring on her finger as she gave Rhysand orders in Russian. Rhysand turned his cool gaze to the man and slipped his hands in his pockets. “I gave you the tools, General,” he replied in English--for my benefit, perhaps? “You can find out for yourself if he’s lying.”

“I want _you_ to tell me,” Amarantha said, her Russian accent making the words even more serpentine.

Rhys nodded simply and gestured for other to bring forward a complex array of technology that I did not recognize or understand. And then, I watched with horror as the device sent waves of pain through the man on the ground until he wet himself and was a blubbering mess. He let out a long string of a foreign language I could not understand, but Rhysand simply nodded. “You heard him,” he said in English. “He was just trying to escape the mountains before the raid. No treason in mind. Just pathetic cowardice.” He jerked his chin toward the mess the man had made under duress. I felt utterly sick--unable to move or run away like I wanted, and unable to seek comfort even in the man I loved, who had made no reaction to anything that transpired before him.

Amarantha simply rolled her eyes and said “ _Razbey yego_.” Shatter him.

Rhysand nodded with careful grace and his fingers went flying over the device in his palm. A moment later, the man on the ground let out a strangled cry and fell down dead.

The cry of horror died in my throat.

“I said shatter his mind, not his brain!” Amarantha snapped in fierce English. As though Rhysand hadn’t understood exactly what she’d said.

“Apologies,” Rhysand said smoothly, sliding the hand with the device back into his pocket. He turned and headed for the bar at the back of the room, and with no other choice besides remaining to stare at the body on the floor, I followed him. Some of the officers whispered to him in Russian, words that I could not understand, but he dignified none of them with a response. He just lifted two prepared glasses of wine from the bar and handed one to me, and without waiting for a response, he downed the whole glass in one gulp.

-

 _2200, 01 OCT 2020. Мёртвая гора (The Mountain of the Dead), Russia._

“Don’t let her see you cry. Put your hands at your sides and _stand up_.”

Rhysand’s whisper was so low in my ear that I could barely hear it myself. I wasn’t entirely sure it was even real.

“Count to ten. Don’t look at Tamlin. Just stare at her.”

Unable to think straight enough to think of disobeying, I did as he said. I met Amarantha’s black gaze, filled with loathing older than the malice between our countries.

“Good girl. Now walk away. Turn on your heel--good. Walk toward the door. Keep your chin high. One step after another.”

I listened to him, but I barely managed it. Thankfully he gripped me by the arm, hard, and managed to keep me upright without being gentle. I stayed standing on shaking knees until we left the room, at which point I relied more on his support until he had escorted me all the way back to my usual cell. He shut the door and left without saying another word. Alone in the dark, I dropped to the floor and wept.

Hours went by, and I couldn’t stop the tears. The--the torture. She’d tied Lucien to the ground, threatening to kill him along with me if I didn’t read off the message they’d supposedly intercepted from American forces. But it was an impossible task--the message had been in the Cyrillic alphabet, in Russian, and I would barely read English, let alone Russian. In desperation, I had shouted out the only thing that I thought would be of any use--that Secretary Springer was planning a rescue mission. I’d heard about it before I’d left to come retrieve Tamlin on my own.

This had interested Amarantha enough to convince her to free Lucien and me, but I might as well have killed us both. Now that Amarantha knew about Secretary Springer’s plans, our only hope at rescue was gone. I had ruined everything. She’d won.

The hopelessness was crushing--the room felt smaller and I wanted to just sink into the earth and be buried within the depths of the Dead Mountain itself, not to be found again for thousands of years, if ever. I wanted this all to be over--I wished I had died in there. I had never wanted this--never wanted to be a hero, to be in a situation where my every action could mean life or death. I’d just wanted safety, comfort. In my desperation, the military had seemed like an escape. Now I realized it had just made my inevitable death so much swifter and more brutal.

“Still weeping?”

I gasped and looked up at Rhysand, who had entered without making the door squeak, somehow.

“You saved yourself and your friend. Tears are unnecessary.”

I only wept harder, and he laughed. He knelt before me and gripped my wrists in an unshakeable hold, prying my hands from my face. I blinked as the room suddenly opened, didn’t feel like it was about to crush me. Rhys’s eyes were the only points of light and color in the whole room. He smirked and leaned forward. I was unable to pull away from his vice-like gripped as he began to lick the tears off my face. I couldn’t understand my own body’s reaction as I shuddered and warmed, tensing and relaxing in different measures. Only when he mouth came near my eye did I jerk back and let out a feline hiss.

“I figured that would get you to stop crying,” Rhysand laughed, releasing my hands.

“It was disgusting,” I spat.

“Was it?” Rhysand’s dark eyebrow lifted. I ordered him to leave, and he shook his head. “As usual, your gratitude is astounding.”

“Do you want me to kiss your feet? Do you want a second date?” I sneered.

“Not unless you feel compelled. Or you’re so infatuated after our first date that you beg me for another.”

“You’re a disgusting bastard.” My hands curled into fists at my sides and I was moments away from pouncing on him and punching him across his insufferable, perfect face.

“I’ll have to ask Tamlin if this kind of flattery won his heart.” Rhys groaned as he stood, and the sound rattled my bones and settled in my gut. “I’ll spare you the escort duties tomorrow, but the night after, I expect you to be looking your finest.” He paused by the door and cocked his head. “Just so you know, I’m already hard at work planning our first date. I suppose vodka is off the menu?”

He slipped through the door before I could leap at him and throw my punch. I screamed in frustration and began to pace around my cell, glaring at the swirling mark on my skin that still hadn’t faded from our bargain weeks ago. What on _earth_ had he painted me with? I swore at it, imagining it was Rhysand, letting my anger build until it was a fire under my skin.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized that Rhysand had intentionally provoked me. Angered me. And that, perhaps, had kept me from shattering altogether.


	3. The Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite a moment of reprieve with her love, Feyre's struggles are not over, and an unusual visit from Rhysand might just change everything.

 

_2130, 30 OCT 2020. Мёртвая гора (The Mountain of the Dead), Russia._

I lingered once more in that horrible room. How could a place so refined and beautiful be the place of so much horror and destruction? She didn’t deserve this finery--none of them did. No one was paying attention to me that night, so I just waited by the wall, waiting to see if Rhysand would summon me or leave me in peace for a change. The only thing that kept me sane at this point was the memory of the music that had floated into my cell from far off the night before--though sanity was relative at this point. Still, the music had been heavenly, the first hint of humanity I’d experienced in this place the nearly three months I’d been here. For a moment, as I’d listened, I’d broken free of my dark cell, the beautiful horror, and ascended to freedom as beautiful and lovely as the tops of the forested mountains I’d once known as home.

I’d seen the sun staining the gold and orange leaves of autumn, always brilliant in Appalachian Virginia. I’d wanted to fall to my knees and worship at the intense feeling that there was _something_ out there better for me--better than the cold rickety trailer I’d called home and the pressing burn of hunger in my stomach. The ragged hand-me-down clothes and the cold showers. Whenever I’d gone to the closest hillside to watch that sun rise, I’d felt hope.

Hope that had been realized in those short, beautiful months that I’d been with Tamlin in Spring Valley, not hungry and at peace to paint and dream and have _more_. I remembered the feeling of his lips on mine, when my resentment had given way to thankfulness and I’d been able to carve out a little bit of peace for myself, before the war.

The music had made me see other things, too. Rich purple landscapes and full clouds and a room of soft couches and smooth walls, a radiant sunset visible through the window. I hadn’t seen that place before, but the music brought the vision to me clearly, and I wondered if it was heaven--if it was where I might go when Amarantha finally killed me.

She didn’t seem inclined to kill me tonight. She was busy entertaining her officers and other faces that I had not cared to learn or remember. She kept Rhysand close nearby. My eyes searched for Tamlin, but for the first time, I didn’t see him.

Then, fingers on mine. A squeeze. Familiar callouses.

I did not dare look up, not until he’d drifted away again into the storage closet behind the bar, just around the corner and out of sight. I waited a moment, ensuring no eyes were on me, and then I followed.

I was barely in the room before he crashed into me and kissed me, pinning me against the nearest bare wall, careful not to rattle any empty bottles or equipment stuffed into the room. I melted into him, letting his familiar scent wash over me as he gripped me tight, fingers pressing into the skin of my waist as his tongue searched my mouth fervently. My hands grappled with the belt at his waist, tearing it off as quickly as I could. I needed--I needed him. Needed to be touched. If indeed I wouldn’t survive this hell, I could have this. Tamlin’s hands pushed away the slight fabric covering my breasts and I could already feel my lips bruising, but I hooked my leg around his waist and pulled him close.

It was fierce, fierce even than the night before his deployment when he’d so passionately made love to me, before I’d been sent home for two weeks of leave leading up to my own assignment. It was the memories of his lips on me then that had pushed me through these past few months--that faint hope that we’d get out and perhaps live to hold each other again, just like we were doing now.

The moment ceased when a cough that wasn’t ours sounded in the tiny closet.

“Shameful,” Rhysand purred. “Look at what you’ve done to my pet. General Konstantinovna would be greatly aggrieved if she knew her little Americans were dallying in the closet. I wonder how she’d punish you. Or perhaps she’d stay true to fashion and punish Lieutenant Fallbrook instead.”

Tamlin slowly released me and backed away. I missed the heat of him the moment it was gone. My heart crumpled like tin foil as I watched him obey Rhysand’s orders to clean up and leave. He was so far above Rhysand in every way, and yet now he was taking commands from the traitor. “Enjoy the party,” Rhysand crooned.

Tamlin paused at the door to fix his green eyes on me and murmur, “I love you.” And my heart shattered.

When he was gone, Rhysand laughed to himself. “If you’re that desperate for release, you should have asked me.”

“Pig,” I spat, though my voice shook as I adjusted my gown to cover myself.

Before I could blink, Rhysand was pinning me to the wall, his hands on my wrists. “Do you actually intend to put yourself at my mercy, or are you truly that stupid?” He was angry--why, I could barely fathom, but the sound of his ire was cold and crushing.

“I’m not your pet.”

“You’re a fool, Feyre. Do you have any idea what could have happened had Amarantha found you two in here? Dead. On sight. Ransom or no.” He shook his head, his breathing uneven. “You’re both fools. How did you not think someone would notice you were gone? You should thank God none of the officers saw you.”

“What do you care?” I demanded, my wrists aching in his grip.

“What do I care?” he breathed, wrath finally breaking his perfect visage. “What do _I_ care?”

His head snapped to the door, but before I could insist he continue, he was kissing me, hard. He pried my mouth open, invading me, claiming me, as though he could wipe out the taste of Tamlin in my mouth.

Behind him, the door was flung wide, and the general’s elegant silhouette filled the doorway. Wrong--so wrong that she was made so lovely and yet so cruel. Tamlin was there beside her shoulder, and several officers cackled at the sport. Rhys released me slowly and turned casually to Amarantha, sweeping into a half-bow as he grinned like the cat who’d caught the canary.

“Delightful. I have two traitors in my midst now,” Amarantha purred. “Secretary Springer will be delighted to hear his little charity case and his son’s _amour_ is now more interested in the turncoat.” She grinned as though it was the most entertaining thing she’d seen in her life. Tamlin said nothing--he _had_ to know it wasn’t true!

I couldn’t form any kind of response before Rhys pulled me out of the supply closet behind Amarantha and the others. “I’m tired of you for tonight,” he said curtly. He beckoned to one of the guards. “Take her back to her cell. But remember . . . no touching.” He wagged his finger as though he was scolding a child, but the guard grinned. As he shoved me by the shoulder to lead me from the room, I searched for Tamlin--but he was walking away, not even caring to look back in my direction.

-

_0330, 31 OCT 2020. Мёртвая гора (The Mountain of the Dead), Russia._

I jerked upright when Rhysand appeared in my cell late that night. I’d been about to drift to sleep, but hadn’t managed it. I curled up against the wall, glaring at him as I remembered the kiss he’d stolen from me.

His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and slightly wrinkled--it was the most disheveled I’d ever seen him. He ran his hand through his hair and, without invitation, sat against the wall on the other side of the room.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

He gritted his teeth and rubbed his temples. “A moment of peace and quiet.”

“From what?”

A sigh. “From this mess.”

I sat up, surprised by his candor. I’d never seen him like this.

“That damned bitch is running me ragged,” he said, leaning his head against the wall. He cracked an eye open and fixed it on me. “You hate me. Imagine how you’d feel if I made you serve in my bedroom. I’m a senator’s son--a businessman. Not her harlot.”

I blinked. I’d almost forgotten that Rhysand’s father was a senator--that most of his family had been in government in some form or another. I only knew Rhysand as the traitor. Anything else hadn’t mattered.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Rhys exhaled softly. “Because I’m tired and lonely, and you’re the only person I can talk to without putting myself at risk.” He glanced at me and added, “It helps that you speak English.”

“How did you learn Russian, anyway?” I asked, unsure of why I even cared about the answer.

“My mother was from Ukraine. I grew up speaking Ukrainian. It’s similar enough to Russian that when my being here necessitated that I figure out Russian, I caught on quickly.”

I tucked away the information, which struck me as odd. If his mother was Ukrainian . . . why would he give himself to the Russians’ cause? Something wasn’t adding up.

Rhys smirked slightly at my puzzled expression. “I’m not like those who wear it as a badge of honor that they only know one language.”

My cheeks burned as I thought of people I’d grown up around who’d chanted “English Only” whenever they’d had the chance. I wasn’t one of them--I’d simply failed all my Spanish classes. I’d been too busy hunting and keeping our house together to study. “You can leave if you’re just going to insult me.”

“But I’m so good at it, dorohyy.” From his grin, I knew he’d called me darling again, but whether it was Russian or Ukrainian I had no idea.

His smile faded. “Why do you think I’m doing this?”

“Because you’re a monster.”

He laughed. “True. But I’m also a pragmatist. Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against Amarantha. He might actually grow a spine and kill her himself.”

“Who’s to say he won’t kill you as well?”

“Perhaps he’ll try--but I have a feeling he’ll kill Amarantha first. All of this can be blamed on her. He’s dying to turn this mountain to rubble and bury her beneath it.” He picked at his nails. “And I have a few other cards to play.”

I lifted my eyebrows in silent question.

“I never touched you. He knows. It’s my only claim to innocence, the only thing that can convince him I was on your side. Believe me, I would have liked nothing better than to enjoy you--but there are bigger things at stake than taking an untested servicewoman to bed.”

“Like what?”

Rhys’s expression grew distant. “Like my home. My family. And my country, even if you call me traitor. You’re a soldier--surely you understand.”

I did. In spite of it all--in spite of knowing that if I wasn’t connected to Tamlin, there wouldn’t be plans to rescue me, no matter the posturing of the senators and representatives--I loved my country. I loved my freedom. I missed my home.

“Why did Amarantha target you?” I dared ask. “Why make you her whore?” He was a genius, certainly, but he had been neither a soldier nor a politician. He’d just been helping the relief efforts in Ukraine, or so everyone had thought.

“Beyond the obvious?” Rhysand gestured to his perfect face. “My father insulted her in some diplomatic meeting ages ago--and he’s been outspoken against Russia’s actions in Ukraine for years now. He always made a nuisance of himself, and naturally he was highly critical of Tamlin’s father, who had a history with Amarantha. So, when she heard I was in Ukraine, Amarantha decided that she especially wanted to punish the son of the thorn in her side--decided that she hated me enough for my father’s politics that I was to suffer.”

The room felt cavernous and hollow at the confession, the explanation. It still didn’t explain or excuse what he’d done by giving her equipment and technology, but . . . the situation was far more complicated than I’d realized. The broken and desperate part of me searched for the words to wound him, to get some sort of revenge for all he’d done, but the still-human part of me saw what he’d said and done in a new light. Before he’d kissed me . . . he’d known that Amarantha was coming. Whether he’d done it to make her jealous or not I didn’t know, but maybe . . .

I _had_ been a fool. My activities with Tamlin would have been obvious to everyone once we’d left that room. We both would have been punished--or shot, as Rhysand had suggested.

Rhysand had saved my life.

“I’ve told you too much,” he said, standing to his feet. “If you’re clever, you’ll find a way to use this against me. And if you had any stomach for cruelty, you’d go to Amarantha and tell her the truth about her whore. Perhaps she’d give you Tamlin for it.” He slid his hands into his pockets, but there was a new curve to his shoulders that hadn’t been there before. As he cracked the door to my cell open, I stopped him.

“When you treated me, you could have asked for more than a date.” His face was already shielded by shadow and I couldn’t read his expression. “You could have even asked me to marry you, and I would have said yes.” If it would have kept me alive . . . saved Tamlin . . . I would have done it.

He tilted his head and a spotted his soft, half-smile. “I know.”

And then he was gone.

I glanced to where he’d been seated before and saw a glint of silver on the ground. I crawled over to it on my knees and lifted it with shaking fingers. My stomach dropped and my blood ran cold when I saw what it was.

One of his devices. I wasn’t sure which, but I knew he hadn’t left it accidentally. If I could figure out what it was used for . . .

Rhysand Knight might have just left me my salvation.


	4. The Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rescue approaches, causing Amarantha to make a bargain with Feyre . . . but will Feyre be able to survive it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, some lines are direct from ACOTAR and belong to Sarah J. Maas.

 

 

 

_2100, 31 OCT 2020. Мёртвая гора (The Mountain of the Dead), Russia._

I wasn’t even surprised when I was hauled out of my cell the next night. Rhysand’s device was tucked into an inside seam of my shirt, small and flat enough that it couldn’t be seen on me. I’d been staring at it all night and day, trying to figure out what it did and why he had left it behind. It seemed related to the device he had used to torture and kill the man on the carpet. But why would he give it me? And if I activated it, who would it affect? For all I knew, it would kill Tamlin or Lucien or even me . . .

But somehow I suspected that wasn’t true.

Whatever it did, it was a comfort to me as the guards led me back to that hellish lounge, where Amarantha was waiting. Rhysand and the officers stood around, watching her and me carefully, but I didn’t try to look any of them in the eye. Tamlin was nowhere to be seen, and my stomach clenched with horror.

“This has been a delightful few months,” Amarantha began as I was shoved before her. “But frankly the fun has lost its charm.” There was something in her hard eyes, a glint of something almost like panic, but her wicked mouth held its usual sneer. “I’m interested in making a deal with you, dear Feyre.”

I stiffened, completely caught off guard.

“It turns out, you were not wrong about your country’s plans to rescue you,” Amarantha said. “I would really like to avoid chaos, so my deal is as follows. Do exactly what I say over the next several minutes, and I allow you to walk free, right into the arms of your noble countrymen.”

“What about Fallbrook and Springer?” I dared ask. _Or Knight?_ I’d observed enough about the general over the past several months that I knew precision was important with her.

Amarantha’s lips pursed like she’d had a sip of bitter wine. “Fallbrook shall go free, and I promise that Tamlin Springer will also be out of my hands.”

There _had_ to be a catch. It . . . it was too easy. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I think we both know the answer to that, dear. You’re simply not worth my resources anymore.”

My throat went dry. I felt Rhysand’s eyes fixed on me, but I didn’t dare look at him. I only nodded at Amarantha, accepting her terms.

Amarantha grinned widely. “Turn around.”

I obeyed, and my breath caught in my chest as three hooded figures were led into the room and forced onto their knees in front of me. I began to tremble and pressed my hand to my side, where I felt Rhysand’s device against my skin. The guards beside each of the figures--two male and one female--had cushions in their hands, and upon each cushion was a . . . a . . .

Dagger. Fierce and sleek and brutal.

“This is my command, Feyre. Stab each of these unfortunate souls in the heart.” I whirled to face her, words failing to pass my lips. “They’re innocent--not that it should matter to you, since it wasn’t a concern the day you joined your nation’s military . . . making you complicit in the deaths millions of innocents over the decades.”

 _No . . . no_. That wasn’t why I’d joined, that wasn’t why . . . I’d never wanted innocents to die. I wasn’t responsible for that! And the innocents that Amarantha’s forces had killed . . . this was sick. All of it was so sick.

“If that’s a problem . . . well, you can always refuse. Of course, I’ll take your life in exchange, but a bargain’s a bargain, is it not?”

Refuse and die. Kill three innocents a live, save Lucien, Tamlin. Three innocents, for my own future. For my own happiness. For Tamlin and our country. My hand shook and I turned to face the people and the daggers again. Not even guns--she wanted me to feel their deaths, without the distance a gunshot would provide.

I couldn’t--couldn’t do this. This wasn’t like hunting, or even combat. It was cold-blooded murder--the murder of them, of my very soul. I had never believed in God and my captivity had robbed me of the desire to even pretend to pray. If I could, I might have, for guidance, or absolution. But I did know Tamlin. And Lucien. And the names of the towns and countries that would be left at Amarantha’s mercy if I failed. If I made it out, I could lead my allies straight to her, destroy her before she could kill thousands more. These deaths would not be wasted--even if it would damn me forever.

I stepped up to the first figure, reciting to myself over and over the names of those I loved, reminding myself of the thousands who could be saved if we made it out of here alive. Their deaths would not be in vain. I could make this sacrifice, of them, of myself . . . I could do this.

My fingers trembled as they closed around the hilt of the first dagger. I had never dreamed I would ever wish for a gun with which to kill somebody. I’d never thought of it like that--I’d only ever considered my own survival. But that was what this was. The guard pulled the sack of the man’s head and I was struck to the core by the blue of his terrified eyes. “ _Net pozhaluysta_ ,” he pled. My heart splintered. Those words--the Russian words I knew best. _No, please_. I lifted the dagger. “ _Ne nado_!” he begged. “ _Ne nado_!”

I shook with horror at his cries, but I’d made my choice.

One final cry broke from his lips before the tip of my knife stabbed him in the heart. “ _Pozhaluysta_!”

I sobbed as his blood washed over my hands and he screamed, collapsing to the ground. My dagger clattered away and something within me was obliterated. I wanted to leave me body--forget the mountain, forget Russia, I wanted to leave me.

“Now the next. Oh, don’t look so miserable, Feyre. Aren’t you having fun?”

 _Bitch. Sick, twisted bitch_.

The second figure was a girl, not far off from my age. Her hair was the same color as mine. My fingers took the second dagger, and I wanted to beg for forgiveness from the woman in front of me, but I couldn’t even find my own voice, my own heart. My soul was in tatters.

“Our Father who art in heaven,” the woman said, and I choked. English. She was from England. An ally. “Hallowed be Thy Name.” Her voice was soft, gentle, almost serene. She was resigned to this. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

My weeping was silent, my lip trembling. I had no idea who this woman was or what she had done to get here, but I couldn’t think about it. All I knew was that whatever heaven she hoped to see would be forever closed off to me.

“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses . . .” Her voice wavered for the first time as she looked up into my eyes. “. . . As we forgive those who trespass against us.”

“I’m sorry,” I moaned.

She just swallowed and nodded once, and I knew she was telling me to do it, to get it over with. “Lead us not into temptation,” she murmured, “and deliver us from evil.”

Evil. I was evil. And God would not deliver her.

“For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.”

I poised the knife over her chest.

“Amen.”

I drove the dagger into heart.

She gasped and collapsed to the ground as the first had, and my soul was little more than a whisper now. I hoped that maybe she had found heaven, that maybe . . . maybe now she could forever be free from the likes of me. A killer of innocents.

I looked at Amarantha, and she was still smiling. Why, when I was so close to walking free? When she knew my freedom might spell her end? I dared glance at Rhysand, but he didn’t look at me. Instead, his gaze was fixed on Amaratha, cold and calculating.

I turned back to the figure on the ground before me, my eyes swimming. One more, and we would be free. But maybe . . . perhaps I would take one more strike, into my own heart, to rid the earth of the stain of my existence. Tamlin and Lucien could escape, tell our allies everything, destroy Amarantha . . . they didn’t need me to do it. No one needed me, ruined as I was.

I accepted the third dagger and the hood was removed from the third and final person.

My hands dropped, the dagger barely held in my loose grip. Those green eyes . . . Tamlin.

A trick . . . it’d been a trick the whole time. She’d never planned to free him, free me, and now those two people I had killed . . .

In vain.

“Something wrong?” Amarantha asked.

“Not . . . Not fair,” I gasped.

Rhysand was pale, and even some of the officers looked surprised. Even nauseous. Like this was something even they couldn’t stomach.

“Fair?” Amarantha asked. “I wasn’t aware that was a condition of our deal. I was honest--you kill Captain Springer, and he’s out of my hands.” Her grin made me think I would never see a smile the same way again. “Unless you think it would be more appropriate to forfeit _your_ life. After all: what’s the point? To survive only to lose him? Imagine all those years you were going to spend together . . . suddenly alone. Tragic, really. But, surely you’ll move on easily enough.”

Tamlin’s eyes were bright, defiant . . . furious. The only spark of color I could see at all.

“So,” Amarantha said. “What will it be, Feyre?”

If I killed Tamlin, there would be no rescue. He was the only reason they were coming at all--and I’d be a fool to think they’d just let Lucien go. If I killed myself, I had no guarantee Amarantha wouldn’t just kill them both anyway, and . . . it was hopeless.

I pressed a hand to my stomach, and my and closed over the device I’d slipped into my inner seam. In the bloodshed, the torment, I’d forgotten about it. My other hand shook around the dagger, but I grazed my thumb over the device. I still wasn’t totally sure what it would do, but . . . at this point, I had nothing to lose.

Tamlin’s eyes dropped to the hand at my stomach and then met mine again. And I saw the confirmation there in the midst of the desperation. _Do what you have to do_ , his eyes seemed to say.

I could still be wrong. The device could be rigged to do anything, even kill me or Tamlin. But if it wasn’t . . .

I locked eyes with Tamlin, and I swallowed over the lump of stone in my throat. I found my voice, just enough to stay, “I love you.”

And then I stabbed him.

-

Tamlin’s cry as my dagger pierced him--not in the heart, but slightly above and to the left--splintered what was left of my tattered soul, but as he fell to the ground I seized the device in my shirt and activated it.

Then the world went to hell.

Distant explosions sounded and shook the room. Officers immediately leapt into action, flooding out of the room to investigate. Had I . . . had I set off the bombs, or was that the rescue?

Amarantha shot to her feet, wrath twisting her features. She barked orders at her officers in Russian before stalking across the room to me. “ _I’m going to kill you!_ ” she spat. She hasn’t wanted me to win--this wasn’t what she’d planned. And I wasn’t going to survive.

I screamed and collapsed to the ground as she pulled some kind of Taser from the belt at her waist and hit me with it, reducing me to a quivering mass on the ground. I knew--I knew what this would be. She wouldn’t use a gun and kill me quick, no matter how close her enemies were. She would take her time.

“ _I’m doing to make you play for your insolence!_ ” she snarled. She stood over me seized my arm, twisting it behind my back and snapping it with expert precision. She pressed a foot to the small of my back and exerted pressure until I thought I was going to break in two. She broke my other arm, then caressed my fingers in her hand as she broke them, one by one. My screams came out as near-silent rasps.

“ _Feyre!_ ” Rhysand roared.

“You really thought I would let you go! When killing you, and the Secretary son, is the greatest pleasure I could possibly know!” Another one of my fingers snapped under her ministrations. “You’re something of a darling back home, you know. They think your bravery so romantic. If only they knew how heartless you really were!”

She flipped me over so my back was on the ground and then stomped down on my ribs, cracking at least two of them. Bile and blood rose up in my throat as my injuries compounded.

Rhysand called my name again, sounding as though he cared at all about what happened to me. Why wasn’t he just escaping? Taking the opportunity of the chaos to break free? I looked toward him with bleary eyes, only to see him pick up one of the knives--

The explosions that had been distant sounded nearer, as though there was a chain of them. Soon we’d all be buried, and I would be grateful.

Amarantha kicked my broken ribs again and again, unaware of Rhysand approaching her from behind with the knife. He launched himself at her, aiming for her throat--

The speed with which she drew a handgun and fired it at him was dizzying.

He was thrown backward, knocking his head against the unforgiving marble of the fireplace. But he didn’t stay down. He tried again to come from her, but the next gunshot nailed him in the shoulder, and he cried out and crumpled, still struggling to get up.

“You traitorous piece of filth,” she sneered at Rhysand. “You were planning this all along--I should have expected no less from a Knight.”

A third gunshot, and Rhysand’s head struck the marble again. But she wasn’t trying to kill him, only to make him suffer like we all suffered. The explosions rocked the building we were in. Her attention was off of me for now as she directed her ire toward Rhysand, jabbing him with the Taser even as she left me a bleeding mound on the floor. “Stop,” I gasped past the blood in my mouth. “Please.” My eyes lifted toward Rhys and his gaze met mine. And--

Here we were, both broken and bleeding, fighting to survive, and perhaps that--that would make the difference.

“Stop? _Stop?_ ” Amarantha demanded, turning back to me. “Don’t pretend you care! He betrayed your country, after all.”

But Rhys’s eyes locked onto mine and I saw something there, a message--

As Amarantha resumed her torment, my head was knocked to the side. I saw Tamlin, clutching his bleeding chest and struggling to stay on his knees. This man--this man whom I’d fought and killed and been tormented for. He was alive. We could still get out of this. “Amarantha, please. Stop this. I’ll do _anything_ \--”

“I’ll deal with you next,” Amarantha snapped as she stood over me again.

The hand Amarantha had not yet broken reached for the device on the floor nearby. I saw Rhys nod once.

And even when Amarantha bent over me to seize my face between her taloned hands, I pressed the button again--only a moment before she snapped my neck and everything went dark.


	5. The Cost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feyre has managed to survive Amarantha, but she's not entirely sure she's made it out in one piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, some lines come directly from ACOTAR and belong to Sarah J. Maas.

 

 _2200, 31 OCT 2020. Мёртвая гора (The Mountain of the Dead), Russia._

It was so dark and cold.

But in the dark, two spots of warmth on either side of my head.

“Immobilize her. Don’t--Springer!”

Tamlin’s distant snarl, and then weight on my abdomen. There should be pain, but I couldn’t feel it. I . . . I couldn’t feel anything.

“No,” Lucien breathed. He’d been somewhere in the crowd, but I hadn’t seen him.

“Get back, Knight!” Tamlin snapped, his voice broken.

“I’m holding her spine in place. If I let go, she might die.”

“She’s not--”

“Not yet.”

I was distantly aware of familiar fingers brushing the hair from my forehead, a kiss on the back of my shattered hand. I was only able to feel the slightest sensations--no pain, no real feeling. I wanted--I wanted to feel his kisses again. To beg his forgiveness, let him truly hold me.

But the dark was calling me.

It would be so easy to let go. To leave the pain behind for good, to never face the shattered soul I had become.

But . . . there was something waiting for me. Some _one_. I couldn’t--couldn’t leave him behind.

“ _Please, Feyre. I’ve got you_.” Rhys’s whisper was so soft in my ear I thought that maybe I was hallucinating it. “ _Stay_.”

There were more loud, garbled voices. I could make none of them out. But then Rhys’s hands were gone and I was being strapped tight to something and nothing made sense and I was floating . . . away . . .

-

_1500 16 NOV 2020. Landstuhl Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany._

My eyes opened and I saw the sun for the first time in months. My eyes burned from the intensity of it, and slowly all my other senses began to return. I felt the starchy material of the clothes on my body, the hard plastic taped to my skin, the coarse blanket draped over my legs.

“ _Sie ist wach!_ ” exclaimed a female voice from nearby, but I did not have the strength to turn my head to look at her. I focused instead on the ceiling tiles above me, the faint clicking and beeping of the medical devices around me.

Then . . .

“Feyre.”

I swallowed and teared up as I heard Tamlin’s voice, as he bent over my bed, brushing hair away from my forehead. His left arm was in a sling, but other than that he was uninjured. He lifted my unbandaged hand in his and kissed the back of it, and relief pierced my heart. I could feel it.

But then everything came washing over me like the blood of those innocents had washed over my hands. I should--I should be begging for his forgiveness. That injury was _my_ fault. I wanted to weep for all that I’d done, wanted to curse whatever modern miracle had allowed me to survive. Why . . . why hadn’t I died?

Tamlin bent down and kissed the tears from the corners of my eyes. “Feyre. Thank God you’re alive. Thank God . . .” He shuddered with his own tears and kept kissing my face, over and over. It hurt, a little, thanks to the bruising there, but I couldn’t tell him. “How can I ever repay you for what you did?”

“You don’t need to,” I said. Truthfully, I wasn’t entirely sure _what_ I had done, besides killing those people. And I wanted to forget it all, forget Amarantha, even if I knew I would never, ever forget what she had made me do.

Tamlin lifted my left arm, bound tightly in a cast, my fingers splayed in braces to set them in place again. Between the bandages, faint glimpses of the markings Rhys had drawn on me were still visible. “Feyre--”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumbled. I couldn’t think about Rhys, what he’d made me promise him, what he’d done in the end--it was too much. And it would force me to think about the life I had taken and the soul I had shattered. “Later.”

“Later,” Tamlin echoed, and he leaned down to kiss me on the mouth. It was soft, gentle, mindful of my injuries. But I kissed him harder, begging him to obliterate me and the horrors that plagued my mind. He obliged me, as much as he could before I whimpered with pain and the nurses came to see what had gotten my heart rate up. Tamlin pulled away, but not before making promises of what we would do once I was healed. My blood warmed, and I let the thought of it sweep me away as the nurses medicated me again, and I drifted once more into the dark.

-

_0830 18 NOV 2020. Landstuhl Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany._

I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next two days. The nurses informed me of the extent of my injuries, but they assured me that the surgeries on my spine had been successful and I would one day regain use of my body. My sensation slowly returned, but I preferred the medically-induced haze to full consciousness.

Tamlin was beside me most of the time, but sometimes others faces came and went. One or two members of the Special Forces team that had gotten us out. Military officials who kept coming to see if I was ready to answer questions yet, who were always turned away. Various well-wishers. I was surrounded by flowers and gifts, all of which made me sick to my stomach. Apparently in my absence, the American media had turned my story into an epic romance, the plight of a young soldier to rescue her love and the son of an American icon. The nation was rejoicing in our freedom, and I was heralded as an American hero.

It was such a lie.

I was fairly unresponsive to any of my visitors, and I mostly wishes that everyone would leave me alone.

When I woke up one morning, there was someone leaning against the window. It wasn’t Tamlin.

Rhys was still dressed all in black, and he stood out starkly against the bleached atmosphere of my hospital room. “Good morning, darling,” he murmured, a half smile lifting the corner of his mouth. I felt like a fool as I pressed the button to lift my bed into a sitting position, but I disguised the awkwardness of it by looking Rhys up and down. He’d taken--three bullets, if my count had been right. Yet he was standing upright and seemed relatively intact.

He seemed to understand my look and said, “She wasn’t trying to kill me. Yet.” He pulled aside the collar of his black t-shirt, which hugged his muscled frame, to reveal a thick patch of bandages at his shoulder. “Still hurts like hell, but at least I’m not you.”

“Thanks,” I said hoarsely.

Rhys pushed himself off the windowsill and crossed the room to offer me a glass of water. I wanted to reject it, but my throat was like sandpaper, so I allowed him to tip the glass toward my lips and help me drink. My right hand was still functional, but the cast on my right arm kept me from doing much on my own. I was too downtrodden to care about my pride.

“What do you want?” I asked when I had more of my voice back. I hadn’t seen him since the chaos in Amarantha’s lounge.

“Just to say goodbye, before your beloved whisks you back home and I’m thrown in prison.”

I blinked in shock. “They’ll really . . . they’ll really do that?”

Rhys shrugged one shoulder, hands in his pockets. “Who knows? It’ll take one hell of a trial to prove that I wasn’t helping Amarantha after all. And since my father is . . .” He swallowed and almost winced. “Since my father died while I was in captivity, he won’t be able to pull strings in my favor.”

My chest hollowed out. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

Rhys just shrugged again. “It would have all been fubar one way or another.”

“I’ll . . . I’ll testify for you. If you need it.”

Rhys’s violet eyes softened. “Thank you, darling.”

“And we still have our date.” The words were fast and clumsy, and I had no idea why I was saying them.

“I look forward to it,” he murmured.

A moment of silence passed between us before I asked, “Why?”

He knew what I meant. “Because, regardless of whether I’m remembered as a traitor or a patriot, I wanted to know for myself--and I wanted my future children to know, perhaps--that I was there, that I fought against her at the end, even if I couldn’t do anything useful.”

He did, though. He saw the look on my face and was about to answer, but I said, “What happened? I . . . I don’t remember, and no one will tell me.”

“The button you pressed activated a sensor embedded in her clothes. It took her out--long enough for Tamlin to kill her and the rescue to arrive.” Rhys fixed his intense gaze on me and said, “If you hadn’t pressed that button, Feyre, it would have all been over.”

“You still didn’t have to fight, though. You gave me that button--you didn’t need to do more.”

Rhys’s focus on me was relentless, and even if I’d been able to move I wouldn’t have. “I did. Because I didn’t want you to fight alone. Or die alone.”

I thought of the first soldier I’d seen die on the battlefield, how Tamlin had urged me to move on, but I’d stayed. How I’d said the same thing later. “Thank you,” I said.

Rhys grinned, but it didn’t chase away the shadows in his eyes. “I doubt you’ll be saying that after our date.”

I just scoffed and turned my head to the window. There was a nice view, but the part of me that might have once learned the colors and textures or even simply celebrated the open air . . . it was silent.

“So they’re taking you home today?” I asked.

Rhys nodded. “I’m being discharged, then it’s back to DC. Where the fun begins.” His brow furrowed and he looked me up and down. “It’s strange, isn’t it? To be alive after all of that?”

I peeled my eyes away from the window and looked down at my lap. “I’m not sure I am.” From the corner of my eye I saw him lift his eyebrow, so I explained, “My body is healing--will heal completely, they tell me--but this . . .” I struggled to gesture to my heart. “This isn’t. Won’t. And I’m not sure I want it to. If . . . if I deserve that.”

Rhysand stared at me for long enough that I looked up at him again. “Be glad of your heart, Feyre. Pity those who don’t feel anything at all . . . and who destroy without ever counting the cost.”

I just nodded. My heart knew the cost--had caved in because of it.

“Well, good-bye for now,” Rhys said, cracking his neck and wincing as the motion pulled at his injuries. So casual, as though he wasn’t about to face down hell--a different hell, certainly, but hell nonetheless. He bowed at the waist, his usual swaggering self, but when he met my eyes again he froze--and an expression crossed his face that I couldn’t begin to interpret. Pale, nostrils flared, his eyes more emotional than I’d ever seen them. As if at last he would break.

Then, without another word, he swept from the room, leaving me with nothing but the faint beeping of my equipment.

-

_1700 30 JAN 2021. Fort McNair Army Base, Washington, D.C., United States of America_

There was a crowd waiting for us when we arrived after months of healing in Germany. I could walk, and my broken arms were almost healed. My neck was still set in a stiff brace, but soon I’d be free of that, too.

The roaring of the crowd was nothing but static in my ears. The signs and banners they held up as I disembarked the plane, hand-in-hand with Tamlin, were blurs of color that I could not read. If only they all knew what a fraud I was, how unlike a hero was was in my heart.

But . . .

We were home. I’d never allowed myself to truly think of what this might be like. To hear English, to see American flags flying high, to see familiar structures and the flat landscape of the banks of the Potomac. But we’d made it. We were both home.

I squeezed Tamlin’s hand, thankful for the feel of it, for the presence of _him_ after all that. Tamlin wrapped his arm around my shoulders and tucked me close, and I sank into him. He was all that mattered. We looked out over the crowd and the airfield and the river in silence, until Lucien beckoned us toward food and rest. I stepped forward and then turned to kiss Tamlin, earning a cheer from the crowd beyond. I tuned it out.

There would be time to reckon with all we had been through now that we were home, now that we truly had peace. But for now . . . for today . . .

“Let’s go home,” I said, and I took his hand.


End file.
